Who Were the Suebi?

The biggest and the most important of Germanic tribe were the Suebi. This is what Tacitus writes:

We must now speak of Suebi, who do not, like the Chatti or the Tencteri, constitute a single nation. They occupy more that half of Germany, and are divided into a number of separate tribes under different names, though all are called by their generic title of ‘Suebi’”

Approximately 100 years later, Ptolemaios in his Geography, talks about Vendeti Mountains, which are North Carpathian mountains and he places there a nation “Suobeni”.

Czech translation is “Suebove”, Latin knows them under Suebi, and in English translations we would find a word Suevi. The difference between “Suebi” and “Suevi” is in the replacement of B and V. This substitute is nothing unique; we would find it in many words such as: Danuvius – Danubius (Danube), Velehrad – Belehrad (Belgrad), Vulgarii (Bavorian geograph) – Bulgari, Vratislavburgium – Bratislava, al-Abar – Avar, Venezia – Benecia (Venice) and so on.

Suebi from Tacitus’ work and Suobeni from the work of Ptolemaios and obviously the same nation, based not only of similar name (different end of words) but they are also placed in the same area. It is possible that Tacitus, and later the authors who used his work in theirs, simplified the word and shorten the original Suobeni to Suebi. It is also possible that both of those names were used. The name Suebi (Suevi) was used by foreigners, because they considered the rest of the name to be suffix. Suobeni (Suoveni) called themselves Suobeni, because they knew it was not a suffix.

The core of power of Suebi (Suevi) – Suobeni (Suoveni) was today’s Western Slovakia, Moravia, north-eastern Austria and North-western Hungaria, with Bratislava as their political centre. Some dialects in Moravia and Slovakia (Záhorie, Novohrad) still have a specific feature, which is a switching of consonant -l and -ų (pronounced as “u”). This switch does not apply to the whole vocabulary but is only visible in certain group of words. This way, in Záhorie, they know words such as: dųaň (dlaň) {palm}, ųavica (lavica) {bench}, škoųa (škola) {school} (words in bracket is the form rest of Slovakia knows them) but also words: chvíľa {moment}, košela {shirt}, strela {bullet}, ladvina (same as in the rest of Slovakia). I could cite more examples, but it would be pointless and would probably just confuse the reader.

Similarly, another poet, Jan Botto, wrote a funny little story where he used southern central Slovak dialect. We would find another set of words with the same features: bou (bol) {he was}, prešou (prešiel) {crossed}, preplovau (preplával) {swam accross}, vedeu (vedel) {knew}, etc.

The Slavs called themselves Suobeni or Suoveni, the foreigners shortened it to Suebi or Suevi. The incorrect translation of Suebi into Slovak language is Svebi, while the correct way of interpretation of words Suebi – Suobeni is Slevi – Sloveni.

The word Slav / Slavs (here I mean its Slovakian translation – Slovan / Slovania) is a relatively new term fabricated in 19th century by non Slovak historians. The original name Sloven did not fit into emancipated growth of the youngest of Slovak nations – the Czechs. The name was convoluted into Slovan, and in the spirit of Herder’s philosophy, it started to be widely used for all language related nations of central and eastern Europe, who are now known as Slovania (Slavs). Slovan in just a variation of Sloven. I could cite many examples of words where e-a-ie-ia are interchanging depending on dialect.

We can call Sloveni (incorrectly called Suebi) a dominating nation-like group in Europe with relatively compatible language. Their weakness lied in the decentralized power. They were divided into many tribes who were competing with each other. We can find a mention of this in writing of Spanish merchant and diplomat Ibrahim ibn Yaqub (cca 950 AD) who states:

Slavic people are very brave a good in battle. If they were not so divided into many tribes and families, no nation on Earth could defeat them.”

Thanks to internal problems, targeted politics of Frank Empire and medieval catholic church, the tribes were defeated one by one. Around the beginning of 18th century, the decay was completed by deleting important parts of history and Sloveni became Slavs (Slovania), whose homeland were the marshes of Pripyat.

Labelling of Suebs – Suobeni as Sloveni and at the same time Sloveni as the biggest and strongest of all Germanic tribes (today Slavic tribes) sounds so fantastic that one automatically discards the idea when presented the first time. Here we should keep two points in mind. One: this fantasy is not as outrageous as the story of Pripyat marshes, and second there is not anything that disputes this idea, contrary to that there is a lot of evidence in support this statement, either directly or indirectly.

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Parseval

On the other hand, the Suebi are considered the people who settled in Southwest Germany, nowadays known as the Swabians (in English)) and Schwaben in German. They are the core of the Alemanns, living, through the vicissitudes of histrical development, as Germans in Switzerland, eastern France, Northern Italy, and Austria, centered around the lake of Constance and speaking a distinct form of German. Slavik’s text deserves, however, consideration, as the notion of the Slavs might have been indeed an invention of recent times and they are rather descendants of Germanic tribes in the east. If so, this… Read more »

So would many Slavic people be considered Germanic? When you look at the Slavic volunteers fighting the Bolsheviks, most of them look Germanic – we really are one people, and Hitler knew this – that is why Germany offered peace so many times with France, Poland, England, The US, and Russia! Such a disastrous war for the Aryan peoples – and other countries that wanted National Socialism!

Slavs are originally nordic tribes just like Kelts and Germanics. The name “slav” derives from “slave” (sclaveni) and referred to peoples who had not been christianized by Rome yet. They were treated as outlaws and were given an artificial language by monks (Method and Cyril) from East Rome, which was spoken by the people NOT before the 14th century. We can be proud of those people but the term “Slav” is an insult if you look at phylology.

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8 months ago

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SiriusB

Thanks, I wanted to write something similar. What always boggles my mind is how “Slavs” often try to construct a Slavic creation myth. Yeah here it is in a nutshell: – Church comes in and hammer an idea into the eastern Germanic tribes telling them they are Slavs – Indoctrinate and enforce eastern Germanic tribes with artifical and made-up languages (slavic languages) I don’t want to talk derogatively about Slavs. My point is they should reflect about the whole Slavic scam and come back to their roots. Which is eastern Germanic. They should stop calling themselves Slaves.… Read more »

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8 months ago

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Mika

Very true mate, I am glad that there are people who understand. If you get into a discussion with people from east Europe, they always react in a hostile way. White European people will only prevail if we acknowledge our common racial heritage.

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8 months ago

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Slavik@use.startmail.com

Cyril and Method implemented their alphabet to people of Great Moravia, not the language. I thinks we speak the same language we did 2000years ago. I don’t subscribe to the idea Slav=Slave. Does not make sense. I don’t believe for a second that people who were able to fight off Romans would incorporate “slave” into their names. That suffix, IMO, means “celebrate”, then the names make more sence Look at their names: Vladi-slav (celebrate those who rule), Rasti-slav (celebrate those who grow), Miro-slav (celebrating worls (or peace)), Brani-slav (celebrate those who defend)… I agree with everybody here,… Read more »

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8 months ago

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Konrad

In the 2016 winter I spent some time in North-eastern Austria, about 1.5 hours drive from Vienna in a place called the Waldviertel (forest quarter). The nearest village to where I stayed is called Raabs an der Thaya. A beautiful old village on the Thaya river that is ringed with old castles, some in a state of disrepair. These castles were the outer defence perimeter, defending against the Ottomans many centuries ago. I spent time wandering through the dark forests, snow covered trails with the only sounds coming from the water running over the rocks in the… Read more »